Woo, another update. In this chapter: Zuko is a Katara fanboy! Katara figures stuff out! Some Taang awkwardness! And Ty Lee!

Onward, my friends. And thank you for the reviews!

Chapter 21

Zuko's grin didn't leave his face until he was out on the street and people were looking at him funnily. Humph. He was in love. He was allowed to smile like an idiot.

In love. Kind of a nice feeling. Well, he had completed step one of Sokka's instructions; he had apologized. Now he had to tell her how he felt about her. He had thought he could do it back in the school atrium, but she had pushed him away, and looked skittish about the whole thing, so he decided to back off for a bit. Didn't want to spook her too much.

But when could he tell her? Maybe he should plan some sort of date situation? Or 'accidentally' knock on her door in the middle of the night and ask for directions to his hotel, and then 'accidentally' push her back into the room and shut the door and…

Zuko's thoughts were broken when a very familiar face entered his field of view. They took on a bemused tinge when he realized that the familiar face wasn't one he was expecting to see in Ba Sing Se. Because she was supposed to be back in the Fire Nation. Helping to run the country.

"Maka?" The stately cabinet member was too far away to hear him. She dropped a bruised peach into a wicker basket she held in her arm, paid the grocer, and moved along the street, seeming like she was on vacation.

Zuko followed her, noting her nonchalance as she wandered, almost aimlessly, taking a bite of a peach now and then, speaking in friendly tones to various passersby. By the time she had thrown the peach pit to the side of the road, her stress-wrinkled face was shaded from the sun by the walls of a low, menacing building with hardly any windows and a single, steel door at the front. Zuko slouched on a bench across the street, pretending to take an afternoon nap. He watched as Maka chatted with the two guards on duty. After a few minutes, they nodded for her to enter.

Now why was one of his cabinet-members so interested in strolling through Dai Li headquarters?

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It hit her. Everything she had been piecing together for the past day and a half coalesced in her mind and came into stark relief. Maybe it was the fact that she had enjoyed a bit of peace and quiet for the first time in a long while. Maybe it was the fact that Zuko wasn't taking up quite as much space in her thoughts since he had apologized.

Katara stood up and almost ran down the hall to Toph's room, opening the door and slamming it behind her in one fluid motion. She kept her voice low, but her eagerness was hard to suppress. "It's Li. Li! This entire time-GAH what are you doing?"

Toph, who had been lightly kissing the neck of the more than century-old Avatar when Katara burst in, pushed against Aang's chest and stood up so quickly Aang had to float backwards on a wave of air in order to keep from toppling over. "Every time! Every time you canoodle me into kissing you with your…canoodling, someone bursts in on us! I'm starting to think you have this whole thing planned just to annoy me!" Toph tried to smooth her hair from its rumpled state, but it was too late. Katara would have the image of Toph making out with the Avatar emblazoned in her memory for years to come.

Aang straightened, rubbing the back of his neck. "Toph, you're exaggerating. And I'll remind you we have kissed at least two times before without anyone bursting in-"

"I'll remind YOU, you bald-headed…arrow man," Toph huffed, "that talking about our private affairs in public is number four on the list of things you don't do when you date me!"

Katara blinked. "You have a list?"

Toph looked over. "Oh, yes. In triplicate. Want to see it? Might be a good template if you and Zuko ever get around to-"

"Hahaha now is not the time, Toph." Katara was not in the mood to discuss her potential love life with Zuko when her ex-boyfriend was in the room.

"Oh, come on, Sugarqueen. You've now seen Aang and I making out; it's only fair that I make you squirm a little bit in return." Toph's grin was almost a good enough disguise for the massive blush that swept her cheeks.

"Toph! So help me! Ugh. Why was I here again?"

Aang, who had been enjoying the repartee between the two women, spoke up from where he was positioned, leaning against his winged quarterstaff. "Uh, you said something about Li? He's one of your students, right?"

Katara pointed a finger at Aang. "Yes. Thank you. To reiterate," she took a deep breath and continued, "it was Li. I was convinced it couldn't have been him, but it was."

Toph held up her hands. "Hold on, there. Li did what?"

"Tried to kill my father!" Upon saying the words, she realized the implications of that statement. She repeated herself in quieter tones: "He…tried to kill my father."

Toph sighed and swatted at Aang's hand as he nonchalantly tried to lay it on her shoulder. "What proof do you have?"

Katara bit her lip. "Well. No proof, really. Only inklings." The excitement returned; she didn't have time to feel sorry for the boy. "But first off, he's a waterbender. You remember how Yuki said waterbenders in Hertzer are trained in secret, or the shadows, or something? That fits with the ice-knife-wielding assassin idea we had earlier."

"Maybe. But only if Li is from Hertzer," Aang pointed out, this time trying to reach clear around Toph to her other shoulder. Katara raised an eyebrow…Toph might have been blind, but she wasn't born yesterday. Toph elbowed him, and Katara suppressed a snort of laughter.

Clearing her throat, Katara nodded. "Well that's the thing. The ring. I forgot to tell you this, but the ring Li has around his neck is from Hertzer."

"How do you even know that?" Toph's left hand, which she had raised to whack Aang on the arm, halted with her question.

"Because of the symbol! I've only seen its like once before, on a ring worn by a really odious, fat man –" Katara stopped again, and her eyes widened in shock. "I think I've met Yuki's father!"

Toph raised an eyebrow. "What? You're not making sense, Sugarqueen."

"Li's ring has the same symbol as Hari's."

"And Hari is the odious, fat guy?" Aang asked.

Katara huffed in annoyance, trying to get all the information rolling around inside her head out onto the table. "Yes. Look, when I was searching for Li last night, I ended up meeting Zuko, who has apparently been meeting with this Hari guy for a while, who is from Hertzer and has a ring that looks very much like Li's. Zuko now knows that Hari is the man behind my father's assassination attempt. And I think he may be Yuki's father! She said he was trying to get Georg out of the way, right?"

"Well, thanks for keeping me informed." Toph crossed her arms.

"I forgot, okay? And last night I was a little…confused. I still am. But anyway, Hari is Yuki's dad, Li is a Hertzian waterbender who has been sneaking around, and my theory is that Li was the one employed by Hari to assassinate Hakoda!"

Toph paused, then nodded. "Seems like a plausible theory. But again: you have no proof."

"I know." Katara's excitement deflated, and she slumped into a chair across from Toph.

Aang gave up on teasing Toph and leaned against the wall again, bemused. "And what could his motive possibly be?"

Katara pursed her lips. "I hadn't even thought of that." She fell into a reverie of thought; something she had been doing far too often, of late. Why? Why would the young, studious youth have tried to murder the father of his own teacher? Could someone work up a vendetta in a matter of months? Surely Katara wasn't that harsh a taskmaster. Unable to reconcile Li's character with the murderous act, but without an alternative explanation, she groaned and looked at her friends. "Any ideas?"

Aang considered. "Well, we could always ask him."

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Ty Lee had just finished one of her favorite lectures – mid-air spins – and was happily making her way to the dining hall. Maybe they were serving noodles today. She loved noodles.

She slowed her pace, in spite of the rumblings in her stomach, when she heard irate shouting in the back courtyard. Strange. No one was usually there during this time of the day. She poked her head out one of the hallway windows to see what was going on, and saw two young men sparring.

One of them, the younger by a few years – she thought his name was Rumi? Or maybe Rui – had a large sphere of water suspended high over his head and was shouting so loud Ty Lee was sure all the students inside the school could hear him.

"Why did I ever look up to you? Why did I ever trust you? You're a traitor! A mindless, backstabbing traitor!" Tears came to the child's cheeks, but he appeared not to notice them and spread his stance wider, digging his toes into the soft earth.

His opponent, a tall, handsome youth, frowned across a space of about fifteen feet. He wasn't preparing any sort of defense. But he stood next to a large pond that he would probably be able to use to his advantage. "I told you not to follow me, Rui. Just forget you saw anything, okay?"

Rui growled and lifted his hands straight up into the air. The sphere above him rippled from end to end, stretching the already warped reflections of the clouds in the sky and the anger in the courtyard until they were unrecognizable. He bent the last two fingers of each hand, grimaced, then pulled his hands apart, gliding them down until he held them parallel to the ground. As he did this, the sphere above his head split in half, becoming two smaller globes that now wobbled about five feet above each tensed hand.

"Defend yourself, Li. At least let your last move before you die be an act of honor." Ty Lee raised an eyebrow. The kid was eloquent, but he was going to lose. She had heard Katara talk about this Li student's prowess. He was unmatched.

Rui ignored Ty Lee's mental note, though, and, balancing the spheres quite elegantly, he turned to the side and windmilled his arms fluently, finally holding his fists at his sides, his arms slightly bent. He pulled his right fist back, back, back further still. Then, in one swift motion, he threw it forward. The rightmost sphere of water stretched a bit, motionless, then jetted forward in a blur before splashing on the ground exactly where Li had been only a second earlier.

But Li was now two feet behind Rui. He had moved so quickly that Rui was even now in the process of sending the other sphere of water towards Li's last location. Li lifted up a small ribbon of water and started bending it around Rui's neck.

At this point, Ty Lee thought it best to intervene.

Li only had the chance to say something that sounded like "Sorry, kid, but I have to-" before Ty Lee dropped in behind him and sent her hands, fingers plied apart to press various pressure points, towards the youth's shoulders. It was a move that should have put Li under for a few minutes at most. But Li had sensed her move, and was now spinning, batting her hands away and leaping backward to put both Rui and Ty Lee in his field of vision.

Ty Lee untensed her hands, puzzled that her prey had disappeared from under her expectant ministrations. But then she grinned.

"You're good! Wanna fight me?"

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"Speak of the devil." Toph heard the vibrations in the far courtyard over Katara's ridiculously loud voice and Aang's fluttering heartbeat. He acted quite calmly, but she knew he was still a bit keyed up from their little…session. Toph was good at kissing, if she did say so herself…

But now was not the time for that. Toph recognized one set of vibrations in particular as belonging to the very student Katara had just accused outright of attempted murder. "Your Li, Katara, is in the middle of something we probably shouldn't miss."

"What? Where is he?"

"Out in the courtyard. Fighting someone much smaller than him…I think it's Rui."

"Don't those two spar all the time? Why do you seem so anxious about this, Toph?" Aang was quite good at picking up on Toph's thoughts. Darn him.

"Because this doesn't feel like every other sparring session they have had. Something's wrong."

Aang and Katara stared at Toph for a minute before Katara spoke. "Let's go break it up, then."

"And ask a few questions."

"Yes, that is the point, Twinkle Bunny."

"You know, I think I like Twinkie better."

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Taang. So, so awkward. But Rui is fighting Li? I wonder why…